Emergency Repairs?

PrincessPlaty

I have just had a phone call from a friend of mine who privately rents through a LA, she has no emergency contact number for the LL or the LA, there is also no number left on the answer phone i have tried googling for one and nothing is coming up neither.

She has 3 children under the age of 3 youngest is under a year old.

This evening she has got home after spending xmas with other family members and a water pipe has burst in her kitchen flooding the entire flat they managed to turn the water off and have turned the electrics off, everything is ruined and it is inhabitable.

Now the way it stands is she isnt going to get hold of the LA/LL til tues (mon is a bank holiday i think isnt it ) at present the family is all split up staying with different family members she phoned the council to try and find out if they had emergency contact details and got told they only help council tenants and to get in touch with her LL

Does anyone have any ideas what else she can do? I have told her to ring shelter in the morning and have told her to ring the council back to an hopefully she will get someone more helpful. But im not really sure what else to advise?

She is totally devastated understandably so if i can give her any more advice to help her it would be much appreciated.

TIA

kidcat

Has she left a message on the answer phone? Its possible that the LA has someone who checks the messages or an alert set up to let them know when a message is left. Its worth a try and see if anyone calls her back.

PrincessPlaty

Yes she has done and so far there is no reply though obviously i didnt expect anyone to be checking answer phone messages at this time of night on boxing day!

It just seemed quite odd to me that they havent been given an emergency number for repairs i let though a private LL and i have a number i can contact him on 24 hours a day if i needed to!

What rights does she have as the tenant as obviously the flat is soaked and she cant live there with 3 kids under the age of 3 is the landlord or council under any obligation to help them with temp accomodation until it is sorted out and dried out properly

G_M

As kidcat says, leave a message. If there is no other way to contact the LL and LA then she'll have to wait till Tuesday.

Meanwhile, is the property seriously uninhabitable? She could call out an emergency plumber and get the pipe fixed, then start to dry out the house - BUT... she'd need to pay the plumber and reclaim the cost later which poses the problems a) of having the money to pay the plmber and b) reclaiming if the LL refuses to compensate her.

clutton_2

To dry out the house she will need to hire a dehumidifier as soon as possible and to lift up all carpets to allow the underfloors to dry out... do they have a shed they can put the carpets into temporarily ?

if she went away and did not leave the heating on to keep the heating system/pipes from freezing, then i regret that she will be seen as "not acting in a tenant like manner" and may well be responsible for the cost of the repairs anyway

it is not good that she does not have an emergency number tho. does she have an address for the LL - could she look him/her up on 192 - or could she go round there ?

princeofpounds

She should have an address for the LL in England and Wales. With a name (also required legally) then directory enquiries may be able to help.

PrincessPlaty

As far as im aware the heating was left on the timer, and she was only away from xmas morning until this evening.

The address that she has is for the letting agents not for the landlord so 192/directory enquiries wouldnt be able to help as it just brings up the info she already has.

As for whether is is seriously uninhabitable i dont know as i havent actually seen the damage for myself

Fire_Fox

The building's management company would be able to get hold of the landlord, as they will be billing him for ground rent/ service charges/ buildings insurance. Is there a caretaker, are any of the neighbours owner-occupiers and would have an emergency number for the mangement company?

PrincessPlaty

Fire_Fox wrote: »

The building's management company would be able to get hold of the landlord, as they will be billing him for ground rent/ service charges/ buildings insurance. Is there a caretaker, are any of the neighbours owner-occupiers and would have an emergency number for the mangement company?

She has tried the neighbours but got no answer we are guessing they must have all gone away over the xmas period The whole bloke is owned by the same landlord. There is no caretaker only a cleaner and unfourtuntly even that doesnt help because they employed my friend as the cleaner obviously if she had anymore details she would use them!

Tbh this is the most recent thing in a long line of incidents they have had with the landlord, from him not doing repairs at all, threatening illegal eviction (when her DH lost his job 2 weeks before xmas he claimed JSA and LHA contacted the LA and explained the situation immediately) he then started turning up at the property unannounced ringing mobile and house phones constantly etc!

Due to this i think her main concern is they are not going to sort it out correctly and she is going to be left waiting for ages with her family separated.

Pitlanepiglet

My tenant did this to me a few years ago - he went away for Christmas when minus 10 temperatures were forecast and turned the heating off, including the boiler pilot light as he thought that would be safer. He froze and destroyed the boiler, some of the pipework that was on the outside wall and burst every radiator in the flat. It cost thousands of pounds to repair and I was lucky that the flat buildings insurance was with the one buildings insurer that covered the damage. I really hope for your friends sake she didn't do something similar.

I think she might have to wait until Tuesday to start the ball rolling, she has always known that she only has an agents number so she'd always known that she had an office hours only contact. I've always made sure that when I rented I had my landlord's mobile number and when I've let that my tenants had my mobile number.

I hope she gets it sorted.

clutton_2

""Tbh this is the most recent thing in a long line of incidents they have had with the landlord, "

and just how is this flood the LL's fault ??